Harlan Lunsford <lunstax[at]bellsouth.net> writes:

- quote -

On the contrary, the IRS will in fact fine an employer which
shows a pattern of failing to furnish W-2's to employees, as
evidenced by a significant number of complaints from
employees to whom W-2's were not furnished.

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Jonathan Kamens wrote:
- quote -

Ah, a very good point. Just as IRS doesn't go after
employers who don't mail W2's to employees. (grinning)

Cheer$,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA

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Victor Roberts <Vic[at]Lighting-Research.com> writes:

- quote -

Yes, yes, we've had this discussion over and over in this
newsgroup, and anyone who wants can go back and read it in
the archives so we don't have to have the entire discussion
again.

To summarize:

Some people here think that it's against the regulations to
claim more exemptions than the number you arrive at using
the algorithm described in the W-4 instructions. Others
think that the algorithm in the instructions is merely a
guideline, that you can use any algorithm to which will not
cause you to underpay your taxes. The vendors of all the
retail tax prep packages seem to fall into the latter
category. Everyone here seems to agree that regardless of
who's correct about the regulations, the IRS doesn't go
after people who don't underpay, regardless of how they
arrived at the number of exemptions on their W-4's.

- quote -

He wants to fix his withholding so that he won't overpay, not
so that he'll underpay.

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Victor Roberts wrote:

(Referring to the W-4 form.)

- quote -

Except in unusual circumstances, the "penalty" is only
the underwithholding of estimated tax penalty.

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jik[at]kamens.brookline.ma.us (Jonathan Kamens) wrote:
- quote -

Thanks !

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Mark Stephen wrote:

- quote -

You really need to get hold of a W4 form and read it, front
and back. If you have only job and married with one child,
four "allowances" (not dependants) is what you may claim.
However if you qualify for certain credits, you may be able
to claim more.

Cheer$,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA

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markrstephen[at]hotmail.com (Mark Stephen) wrote:

- quote -

I believe it is a violation to claim more deduction than you
are entitled to. You are allowed to claim less.

Why do you want to do this? It will only increase the amount
of money you owe when you file for 2004, and may subject you
to underpayment penalties.

--
Vic Roberts

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markrstephen[at]hotmail.com (Mark Stephen) writes:

- quote -

If you really want to figure this out yourself, you need to:

1) Make an accurate estimate of what you expect your taxable
income and tax credits to be for this year, to determine an
accurate estimate of what your tax due will be.

2) Determine how much tax has been withheld from your
paycheck so far this year, and thus how much you want to be
withheld in total for the rest of the year so that the total
for the whole year equals your expected tax due.

3) Divide the amount you need withheld for the rest of the
year by the number of paychecks remaining in the year, to
determine how much you want withheld from each paycheck.

4) Download IRS publication 15-T from
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p15t.pdf and use the
information in it to determine how many exemptions your W-4
should claim to make your withholding equal to the amount
you want on each paycheck. Make sure you consider only the
taxable portion of each paycheck (e.g., exclude pre-tax
deductions for medical insurance, etc.) when doing this!

5) Fill out a W-4 with the number of exemptions you
calculated and file it with your employer.

6) Repeat the process later in the year if your
circumstances change (e.g., your wife starts working).

This becomes more complicated if your wife starts working
and you thus have to do the calculations on two paychecks
with different base salaries.

Personally, I find it much easier to let TurboTax do all
these calculations for me. Especially when I'm in a
sleep-deprived state as a result of living in a house with a
new baby. Speaking of which, congratulations! Now get some
sleep :-).

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My wife and I had a baby last fall and now that she is not
working, I wanted to bump up my paycheck a bit. I was set up
as "married" with 1 dependant. So I filled out a new W4 and
put down 2 dependants. My paycheck went up less than 1%. So
I upped it to 3. Same thing, less than a 1% increase.

I wanted to up my take home pay about 5%-7% or so for the
months that she is not working. Is there an easy way to do
this ? How many dependants should I put down if I am married
with a baby, without a mortgage ?

Thanks,

Mark.

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